The Center is directed by Dr. Robert H. Ellison, Associate Professor of English. He has been working in sermon studies for over twenty years; his major projects have included writing The Victorian Pulpit: Spoken and Written Sermons in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Susquehanna University Press, 1998), editing A New History of the Sermon: The Nineteenth Century (Brill, 2010), and serving as a “consultant editor” for The Oxford Handbook of the British Sermon 1689-1901 (Oxford, 2012). His current projects include curating the Library of Appalachian Preaching: A Digital Repository of Sermons and co-editing (with Keith Francis) A Companion to Preaching and the Sermon, the Twentieth Century and the Studies in Preaching and the Sermon series, both in association with Brill.
Additional guidance for the Center is provided by an Advisory Board of Marshall faculty and staff, local clergy, and scholars at other institutions:
Larry Bailey, Pastor, Living Water Free Methodist Church, Huntington, WV
Emily Murphy Cope, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Writing, York College of Pennsylvania
Rachel Cope, Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University
Laura Michele Diener, Associate Professor of History, Marshall University
Keith Francis, Event Coordinator, Arete Educational and Event Services
William Gibson, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Oxford Brookes University
M. Cooper Harriss, Assistant Professor in Religious Studies, Indiana University
Zach Hutchins, Assistant Professor of English, Colorado State University
Samuel Kessler, Assistant Professor in Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College
Marty Laubach, Professor of Sociology, Marshall University
Patricia McKee, Lecturer, Comparative Study of Religions and Public Humanities, Northern Arizona University
John Morgan-Guy, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Amine Oudghiri-Otmani, Instructor of English, Marshall University
Andrew Reed, Associate Professor of Church History, Brigham Young University
Jeffrey Ruff, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Marshall University
Jessica Sheetz-Nguyen, Professor of History, University of Central Oklahoma
Larry Sheret, Instruction and Emerging Technologies Librarian, Marshall University
Stephen Underhill, Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Marshall University